Old Polynesian tapa in ethnographical collections of the Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology of Moscow University

Abstract

This paper aims to verify the collection of Polynesian tapa (bark cloth made from processed tree fibres) stored in the ethnographic holdings of the Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology of Moscow University. Currently, there are a total of 68 samples, distributed among 8 collections. All of them entered the ethnographic holdings of the Museum of Anthropology from the Museum of the Peoples of the USSR, which is the heir of the Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum. The collections of Count N.P. Rumyantsev formed the core of the Department of Foreign Ethnography collections of the latter. Rumiantsev’s own collection was donated to him by participants of early Russian circumnavigations.